While in Los Angeles last weekend, I overheard the Lakers described as a team of destiny. The person making the statement was one of those typical El Lay know-nothings, complete with a sweater thrown over his shoulders and the sleeves knotted around his neck. He went on to talk about how, it being the last year of Kareem Abdul-Jabbar’s career, the Lakers were natural champions, and it’s a sign of how insulated the city is that it took the person he was speaking to a good 30 seconds to say, “Yes, but what about the Chicago Bulls?”
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The Bulls are reminding us all that the best team on paper does not always win the day, that sometimes things happen that no tout could predict, that the history of sport is filled with Cinderella teams that not only conducted themselves well but that sometimes managed to win everything at stake. They’re doing so by winning games, of course, but they’re doing that in an almost frightening manner. When the Bulls win against theoretically greater powers, they make it seem as if the other team was destined to lose, that the opponent, in fact, desired to lose. The Cleveland Cavaliers looked and played like a beaten team throughout their five-game series with the Bulls. Throughout the match, the Cavs’ coach, Lenny Wilkens, wore a worried, beaten, hangdog expression–an expression of dread. The Knicks’ Rick Pitino, normally the picture of confidence and cool, looked the same way. The Knicks prepared themselves for defeat in each game of the series, as had the Cavs, but where they differed was in the end–and even then there was no difference in the outcome. The Cavs, even when they took the lead in the waning moments of their final game with the Bulls, looked worried and anxious. The Knicks–in the final moments of game six, last Friday at the Chicago Stadium–looked determined and willful, even as they trailed by four points with 11 seconds to play. Only after tying the score and leaving the Bulls 6 seconds to play with the basketball did that worried expression return to Pitino’s face. It returned for the same reason it returned to the face of Lenny Wilkens: Michael Jordan.
Jordan is a fearsome presence. The one thing we kept noticing, over the course of the last few games, is the silly, blank expression he gets on his face when the Bulls break huddle from a time-out. His eyes are clear and empty; the eyebrows have fallen to the side of his face. His mouth is small and shut, the lips almost pursed. The walk is straight and without a hint of swagger. In no way does he tip the upcoming play, and reading his expression is like reading the grain of the wood on a newly waxed court floor. No one would want to see that face across a poker table, and no opponent can want to see it on the court.
In the Pistons and the Lakers, however, Jordan and the Bulls face the two poles of the NBA, the league’s Scylla and Charybdis. The Pistons, with their muscle and their unsportsmanlike play, are masters at two qualities the Bulls do not emphasize at any position. The play of their three important players–the buttless and butt-headed center Bill Laimbeer, the bulletheaded, amply bottomed Mark Aguirre, and the thug forward Rick Mahorn–overshadows the contribution of the best and one essential player, Isiah Thomas. They are the Oakland Raiders of the National Basketball Association, and they deserve a good thrashing.
